Cover Art Competition: Click Here
Blink
Flash Fiction Before You Can Bat an Eye
$200 first prize + $100 second prize+ $25 third prize
Deadline for Entry: December 15, 2005
Sixty Nine Stories Will Be Chosen for Publication
Here's the Theme
What can happen in the blink of an eye while you're sitting at a traffic light? Or, if you stop to help the broke-down car - its flashers beckoning?
What transpires in the intermittent milliseconds of darkness when the half-lit hotel sign located just off the state highway flickers "Vacancy". Then there's the twinkling firefly outside your window--during a storm!
The Paper Journey Press is looking for 66 off-beat original, new stories.
That means no previously published works will be considered.
These stories must be between 250 and 1000 words--no more, no less. The great deal is that if you are chosen you get a chance to revise your story before the book goes to print.
Submission Guidelines
Okay, here's the deal:
How to Submit: Read Carefully. If you are already registered, hopefully we figured out a way that you don't have to do it twice so just go to register above and have at it. We prefer that you register at our site and use the PayPal system; however you may send your stories in on a CD or submit them on paper along with your check or money order.
Originality: Stories will be chosen based on their readability, originality, how closely they adhere to the theme (which is pretty loose) and the word count. We like quirky, offbeat stories--something only you can write. Fiction should be previously unpublished works. Winners will have a period of time in which to revise their stories once they are chosen. Not sure what we like? Then we suggest you read Women Behaving Badly, Original Sin, or perhaps a little bit of Ray Bradbury, Hemingway or maybe even Joan Didion's Play It As it Lays. You could help us keep this business of publishing fiction going by suggesting to your friends Win Neagle's new novel Full Count or Smoke and Gravity, his first novella that we published back in 2000.
Length/Format: Stories must be between 250 and 1000 words. We can't stress this enough!! Stories must be an original work of fiction written by the submitting author. Stories should be word-processed in Microsoft Word 2000 or later.
Publication: We will choose 66 (sixty-six) stories for publication. Some may even be by the same writer.
Submission Fees: You may submit multiple unpublished flash fiction stories. The fee for the first story submission is $10. You may submit up to 5 (five) stories for a $25 flat fee.
Payment/Rights: Writers will receive 1(one) book for each story chosen for publication as payment. Rights revert back to the author upon publication. (A word about submission fees. We don't like them, but we must charge them in order to pay for extra clerical help to process manuscripts.)
Deadline: Stories are due no later than Midnight Eastern Standard Time on December 15, 2005. Stories and submission fees may be submitted via our secure website below or entries may be mailed to Blink, c/o Sojourner Publishing, Inc., P.O. Box 1575, Wake Forest, NC 27588. No phone calls please. If you choose not to submit your story using the website, print out the form on the registration page, fill out the name and contact information, and attach it to your mailed entries along with your payment. Make checks and money orders payable to Sojourner Publishing, Inc. Having problems submitting your story? Write to editor@thepaperjourney.com
Winner Announcement: Winners will be contacted via email on December 31, 2005. Winners names will be posted on the website by January 15, 2006. Writers whose stories were not chosen for publication will not be contacted. Writers should check the website on January 15, 2006 to see if their names are among those chosen. Please remember most of the time we do not contact non-winners. Sometimes if their stories are exceptionally good and it was a close call, the editor-in- chief does contact them. No phone calls please.
Permission: If your story is accepted for publication, authors must sign a release form stating that the story is their original work and that they own the rights to the story. The writer shall accept all responsibility--financial and legal--if multiple submissions to different publishers result in overlapping publication. Authors retain ALL rights after publication.
Cancellation Policy: The Paper Journey Press, an imprint of Sojourner Publishing, Inc. reserves the right to cancel this call for submissions at any time; extend the competition deadline without notice; and/or extend the publication deadline should circumstances warrant without notice. In the event that we do not receive enough quality stories to publish the book we will give you a credit to enter next year's competition, we are unable to refund entrance fees due to the large expense involved in running such a competition.